Powered Sugar and Drone Brood Manipulation for Varroa Control

[2rubes]

We made it through the winter using powdered sugar and nothing else and IÂ’m happy to report we are dropping less then 2 mites a day in 6 of our 7 hives. The 7th is weak due to a leaky top we had last winter. We didnÂ’t notice for 3 rainy weeks. The first dry day, I went to check our sticky boards and found water on it. If it wasnÂ’t for using our boards, we would have not been able to tell water was getting in until we would have opened it. It was also the same hive I tried to dust with rye flour and I got a lot of mold in there. Its all cleaned out, and we have 7 frames of bees on two deeps with bees flying daily, which isnÂ’t that bad, but compared to the others which are loaded with bees you can tell itÂ’s much weaker.
I was concerned by reading that maybe the low mite count was due to mites not being able to drop while bees are in a cluster, and on a sunny warm day in January I powdered sugared all of the hives and the most mites I found were maybe close to 80ish, the other hives had much less than that. Compared to 1000Â’s of mites we saw in the powdered sugar last April, this is amazing.
This procedure is so easy to do. If you think you have a bad infestation, split up you supers and dust each one with ¼ to 1/3 cup of very dry powdered sugar. http://countryrubes.com/pages/4/index.htm for pictures. Make sure you also do this on a dry day. If you do not have screen boards where it’s easy to remove the sugar, you can put each super on a piece of plastic and dust there where most of the sugar will drop below. The bees will clean up all residues, but you want to remove the sugar with most of the mites, as a lot of people say the mites do not die and can escape. I personally see lots of dead mites, but I wouldn’t want to take a chance, and the sugar does hardened pretty fast, allowing the mites that fall after, to just walk on top of it.

I gave my demo on the Dutch Method of Drone Brood Manipulation at our club. Our mentor, Randy Oliver, who was very skeptical that I could talk about it,so the membership would understand, said that I pulled it off with my props http://countryrubes.com/pages/15/index.htm . He called a few days later and has come up with an easy new 3 week method of drone manipulation with a powered sugar treatment on one hive which will produce a nuc, which he promises to post soon.
Janet Brisson

[danno1800]

Thanks so much for posting these great links! -Dan

[blkcloud]

how many people use this method??

[George Fergusson]

>He called a few days later and has come up with an easy new 3 week method of drone manipulation with a powered sugar treatment on one hive which will produce a nuc, which he promises to post soon.

Good work Janet, and a nice page. BTW, Bob Russell of NZ provided the schematic pictures of the procedure, I'm just the local vocal advocate smile.gif I look forward to reading about what Randy has come up with!

>how many people use this method??

Not enough, IMHO. Drone comb trapping is fairly common, but it's use in broodless or nearly broodless hives while at the same time making increase is not widespread, from what I've heard.

The general perception is that it's too complicated and very labor intensive. I think these are misconceptions due to a lack of understanding and while it is not as simple as just throwing in some Apistan strips, it's not rocket science. It's simply a carefully timed and executed manipulation which is no more complicated or difficult than other common beekeeping manipulations involving splitting, swarm prevention, and treating for mites.

Of course, I haven't DONE IT yet smile.gif I do however intend to use the method extensively this year- both drone comb trapping by itself as well as this "splitting for varroa control" method. I am anxious to control varroa without the use of chemicals and hard treatments. The use of powdered sugar adds an interesting twist to the equation which is not part of the original scheme.

There are several relevant threads on this topic. A discussion on the method proper:

http://www.beesource.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000617

And this on the efficacy of mite treatments in hives with, and without brood:

http://www.beesource.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000629

George-

[RAlex]

2 Rubes...Thank You for the post . I am going to use the powered sugar treatment this spring,but wasnt sure of the process
Rick Alexander

[TwT]

nice pic's and info, I did a removal of a old hive this past year and the owner said they had been there since he bought the place (5 years), like your pic of the bee with DWV, this hive had bee's like that with deformed wings and the other bee's were dragging them out and dropping them of the front of the hive, I asked in here and everyone agreed this hive had it (So instead of treating this hive I left them alone to see what they would do (die or live), well they are still alive and strong as all the others,I could go and watch this hive last fall for about 30 minutes and see them drag out about 3-5 bee's with deformed wings..... wonder if I removed a good HIVE....... will soon find out, I was thinking of useing powered sugar this spring just to see what the mite counts are.... thanks for the link!!!

[Bob Russell]

Some shots of powdered sugar ex a confectionery factory in NZ.This powder is ex A1 white granular sugar resulting from purging machines.

http://tinyurl.com/gpkgj

very cost effective at 60% of granular sugar price with no further processing required before use.I hope to add to the album the results from an application method I have under developement.

[blkcloud]

how often do you apply the powered sugar? weekly,monthly,as needed??thanks!!

[2rubes]

Hi everyone. Sorry I'm late on this post, we've been traveling again and our laptop was giving us problems.
Last spring was the first time we used powdered sugar. We had a huge mite infestation going into last spring, the first large spring infestation in about 4 years. Prior to that, we used Apistan in the fall with screen boards and come spring, we could tell that our mite counts were low. We were just reaching for reaching for the Apistan last March 05 when we heard of using powdered sugar to remove mites but no instructions, so we were on our own. We did 3or4 treatments April (on top of both brood boxes stacked together) with incredible results, we saw 1000's of mites in the powdered sugar on each hive. Since we were monitoring with screened bottom boards so carefully, we could tell when some of the hives needed a 4th treatment. I imagine we will be 'seeing before we treat' very soon, but this was what we did last year.
We repeated these treatments of 3x each in June after our berry flow and early August after we pulled our thistle honey. We wanted to be sure we didn't contaminate our honey flow. We did one dusting each in September, October, November, December and January. Our hives never went completely broodless and we had periods of very nice weather. I have said, our January treatment was over kill, showed hardly any mites in the powdered sugar, and before we left on this trip our mite drop on all hives are about 1 to 3 a day (I check once a week and divide by 7).
Bee Culture did an article showing using powdered sugar once a month and then 4 times in August would be more effective than using formic acic twice a year. I would revise that and do a 3 time treatment in the spring and then between honey flows until August. Early August seems to be the critical time since mites are increasing, the queen is slowing down, there would be less drone brood and multiple numbers of mites would be entering worker brood which weakens your winter population.

I don't think the bees use or store the powdered sugar doing the summer honey flows. I've seen bees carry particles of sugar out of the hive in the summer between flows, but we are still being careful not to have honey supers on when doing these treatments.
We do see wax months on our sticky boards every so often. I understand they are always in the hive, and when the hive is strong, the bees will remove them. And we use canola oil for our sticky. I don't clean it off before using the sugar, and we end up with icing that harden's and the mites will walk on that. Goo might be better, not sure.
And about Randy Oliver's new invention, he promises me he will be putting up a website with a link. Since he started his patent procedure, he let me take it on the road to Oregon and I got to show it off to the Eugene membership. He made a giant queen trap, basically made out of queen excluders that hold two deep frames of drone comb and he traps the queen in there (you would do this during a honey flow). He pull's one frame at 7 days and replaces it with a new frame. That frame full of 7 day old uncapped larve could go right into another weak infested hive, as mites do not invade until the 8th day and start capping on the 9th (remember to pull it also by day 20 or you will be breeding mites instead of removing them). Day 15, the queen is released. You have one frame of capped drone brood and one uncapped (new frame)8 day old brood (mites are starting to invade before capping). On day 20, you remove both frames of capped drone brood. The mites left are now all exposed in a Phoretic (hitch hiking on bees) state. The queen was released 5 days ago, that new brood has no mites. You would do a powdered sugar treatment at this point (or OA). This is so simple compared to the 5 week drone manipuation that I first demostrated.
Not sure when he will go into production, soon I hope, and I have no idea of how much he will be charging. I will put up his link as soon as he get's his web site up.
Sincerely,
Janet

[Focus on Bees]

do you think a powder pesticide sprayer would work for powdered sugar mite treatment ?

[2rubes]

Our club president bought a hand duster blower for roses, a hand cranked plastic item with a hopper and nozzle. He really likes it. He said it forces the suger between the frames.
I found with fresh powdered sugar (I buy it in 2# plastic bags when on sale), it coats all bees, even bees that fly in, somehow the sugar jumps up onto them and sticks. I am so happy with our results, I haven't tried any equipment.
Tom Dowda, when he first published this idea in American Bee Journal, was removing each frame and puffing sugar on each side. I wrote to him and told him he was working way too hard and told him of my method. He altered his and now uses my method of pouring about 1/3 cup on each super and brushing it between the frames and then stacking that super on the next and repeating.
I would suggest you try pouring it first before buying any equipment. If you already have equipment that has not used any chemicals, give it a try and let us know.
Thanks, Janet

[Joel]

I would just make certain the device has never been used for dusting any type of pesticide. Even after washing a small amount of residue from something like pyrethrins could have a disasterous effect on you bee operation if it contaminates your powdered sugar.

[junglebill007]

I used an old flour sifter (dont tell my wife) and then brushed what was on the frames down. I followed the treatment schedule and boy did the mites drop!

Now, I have 2-3 mites show up in the tray every few days or so, and the bees are boomin' !

2 rubes, it was your website that prompted me to try this treat of a treatment! Thanks so much!

[kenpkr]

Last Fall, I tried brushing the sugar down after pouring the sugar on top of the frames. The sugar went down but it infuriated the bees and they became very defensive. I haven't tried this method since. Anyone else have this happen?

[2rubes]

Thanks so much, I am very excited about how well the powdered sugar works.
Kenpkr, Yes, a friend in my beekeeping club said that, that her bees seemed really upset, but they didn't attack. Did they attack you or was it just a loud angry buzz?
In the spring and summer, my experience has been more of a curious buzz when I poured the sugar on and much louder when I used the brush, but they never got defensive, like attacking.
In mid-October, the powdered sugar started the bees robbing, even though the weather was nice and we still had asters in bloom, I guess it was getting to be the end of the season. The robbing caused attacking and one of the things I did was remove all of the covers of the hives, a beekeeping tip I had heard about using when you are removing honey late in the season and the bees would start robbing, but I had never had the opportunity to try it. That worked, all the bees went back to their own hives to defend them. I would have thought coating them all with sugar would mask odors since I have used sugar water (with a little vanilla) in the past. The later treatments, I took off all of the hive tops before treating.
I used to smoke them with tobacco and dried grapefruit leaves once a week and you could tell, they didn't like that at all, the buzz sounded very loud and distrubing, not at all like when I smoke with jute or burlap. I thought I was getting great results with the smoke, if I had 50 mites (last spring we had very high mite counts, this spring, hardly any) on the bottom board, after I smoked I got 100. I was pretty excited about that, until I tried the powdered sugar, then we got 1000's of mites.
Were you able to see your mites in the sugar? Was that part sucessful? What is your mite count now?
Sincerely,
Janet

[junglebill007]

I gave them a little puff of smoke when I lifted the lid, waited a few, then began to slowly sift the sugar into the hive. I got no adverse reaction, they did hum a little but less than when I take a few honey frames!

Within 2 hours, I checked the tray and found lots (too many to count) of VM, I dumped that into a bag, waited a couple more hours, same thing, fewer mites. The next day, they had cleaned up the mess and there were less than 2 mites per sq inch. The numbers dropped during the next application (7 days later) and even lower the next time (also 7 days later). sometime in Aug, I think, I repeated the process with few mites found! I guess I disrupted their breeding cycle pretty good and my girls were not "visiting" other hives much.

By the way, their reaction to being powdered seemed less each time.

Now, I get 2-3 mites per inch, centered over where the cluster is in the hive. When it warms up a bit more, I'll "dust 'em" again!

[2rubes]

I know, I feel the same way. 2# plastic bags of no-name powdered sugar has become a staple in my pantry.
We've been traveling a lot this month and that and the rain and snow, we haven't monitored for over a good 2+ weeks. Mostly checking for leaky hives (I'm so guilty of having old material). The last mite count was so low.
Friday and I cleaned off the boards and reoiled. Yesterday I bought powdered sugar on sale at Safeway. Today is beautiful, we are dipping boards and checking on bees. I'm thinking about adding the drone comb that's been sitting in the freezer on our stronger hives.
I'll post the mite counts.
Janet

[2rubes]

We have been traveling so much, and so much rainy weather, I had not been able to work the bees for almost a month, just able to monitor the mite drops, which were all between 0 and 10 a day. Friday I cleaned off all boards and oiled them. Sunday, yesterday, our first nice day, I was able to go into most of our hives. We have 4 strong hives and two weaker ones. One of the weaker hives was queenless a month ago and I took a frame of fresh eggs (our hives never went broodless). I am happy to say, new queen, eggs and no larva, just started to lay.
Our mite count was up a bit, one hive 15 (drop in 24± hours), one 14 and the rest were still under 10. The higher counts were probably do to the drone traps I put in 3+ weeks ago and waited a bit too long, the drones were just starting to hatch. I had several medium frames in deep supers and a few frames of drawn comb with brood that’s been in the freezer from last summer. All traps were filled with capped brood, drones just starting to hatch, and mature larvae. I scraped off the drone comb from the bottom of the medium frames into a covered pot I keep nearby.
I had someone whoÂ’s just getting into beekeeping helping me. IÂ’m breaking open the comb of the least infested hive (6) looking for mites for show and tell. It took a while to find one, and there they were, a family of mites, all reddish brown (mature). We watch as a bee lands on the comb. Suddenly I see a mite on its wing and I point it out to Steven and tells me he sees one on its head, and thereÂ’s one on the other wing. That mite family jumped on the bee that fast. I felt I had to do something fast, and dumped the bee and brood into the freezer.
Then people came over and I was done for the day. Today IÂ’ll go out and take pictures and count how many cells are infested per how many. Does anyone know off hand what the numbers are supposed to mean? Like on one colony that had a low mite count, it looked like one cell in many 50 cells had red 4 mites in it. The more infested hive had more, and IÂ’ll check today and be sure, but maybe 8 cells were infested in 50.
Janet